


Skin like Fire (Skin like Ice)

by Illuminahsti



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo (Penumbra) [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blood, Gen, Other, Pining, Touch-Starved, warnings for blood talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 10:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19196611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illuminahsti/pseuds/Illuminahsti
Summary: Juno gets hurt. Peter gives first aid.(Post s2, pre make up-kissing)





	Skin like Fire (Skin like Ice)

**Author's Note:**

> For the "Bad Things Happen Bingo"   
> Prompt: Hair matted with blood

Peter and Buddy were alone on the ship when Jet, Vespa, and Juno returned. Rita was out to a movie, and the three stoic ones had been doing… something together. They had been remarkably cagey about it, considering everyone was in on the crime these days.   
Jet yelled Buddy’s name and then Peter’s alias at a volume Peter had never heard from him before. 

Peter rocketed out of his room as fast as his legs would carry him, down the narrow metal stairs and into the hold, moments before Buddy came out of her room, leaning heavily on her cane. Jet was covered in so much blood that his shirt was dark brown, and his face was splattered with it. He supported Vespa with one arm—and it was a testament to how badly she was hurt that she let him—and Juno with the other. 

“Juno hit his head,” Jet said, and then carefully steered Juno into Peter’s arms. Peter caught him on instinct, bending under Juno’s limp weight. Juno held a handkerchief soaked in blood to his temple. 

“I must attend to Vespa,” Jet announced, and scooped her into his arms. He left the room, Buddy at his elbow, and Peter was alone with Juno. 

Peter had rules. Necessary rules. Polite conversations were fine, but there would be no asking Juno about his feelings. He could become close to Rita, but not confide his dating past to her. He would not be mean or petty to Juno. 

Above all: he would not touch Juno Steel. 

When Juno had first come aboard the space ship, their fingers had brushed in the narrow kitchen, and Peter's skin had burned for days with the memory. 

Now, Juno sagged in his arms, pressed against Peter from shoulder to hip, and one of his arms hooked overPeter’s shoulder. It was nearly an embrace, tender and supportive, an echo of many such embraces in the tomb. Peter’s mouth was dry, limbs locked. His skin ached. 

“Sorry,” Juno muttered. “Sorry, sorry, put me down.” 

“Now is not the time,” Peter soothed. “Let me patch you up.” 

“I’m getting blood on you,” Juno insisted, and Peter realized what he was apologizing for. 

Juno existed in the present moment, and so Peter had to as well. 

It would be easier that way. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Peter said brusquely. “Too late now. I believe there is a first aid kit in the kitchen?” 

Juno grunted an agreement. “Better there then the med bay. Buddy will be all fussy over Vespa and I don’t—never mind.” 

Peter was grateful to be preoccupied with steering Juno to the kitchen. He couldn’t be picking apart the meanings in Juno’s words. 

Instead, he gently lowered Juno to a bench in the kitchen and then disentangled Juno’s fingers from the shoulder of his shirt. 

Juno groaned and leaned back against the table. He took the handkerchief away from his head and looked at it distantly. 

“Think ‘m gonna need stitches,” he said distantly. “Pass me some whiskey?” 

“Absolutely not, my dear,” Peter said. Juno looked up, really looked, and Peter quickly turned away. He pulled out the first aid kit and rifled through it. 

“Alcohol is a blood thinner,” Peter explained. “And we have skin glue instead. What did you do?” 

Juno grunted. 

“You look awful,” Peter prompted. He pulled on latex gloves, laid out medical swabs, glues, and gauze. 

“Don’t flatter me,” Juno said. “I always look awful.” 

Peter made a skeptical tsk and picked up a kitchen towel. “There is an awful lot of blood.” 

Juno’s groan was closer to a whimper. “Don’t remind me.” 

“Ah yes. You don’t like blood. Well, I’ll—let me try to take care of y—it.” 

He stepped as close as he dared, his knees nearly touching Juno’s, and nudged Juno’s wrist. Juno dropped his hand and tilted his head to give Peter access to the wound. Blood smeared down his face and into his stubble. The wound was right on his hair line, and his tight curls were matted with blood, so thick that Peter could barely see the small cut. Why did head wounds have to bleed so damn much? 

Carefully, like he was touching a hot engine, Peter leaned forward and pressed unsteady fingers to Juno’s forehead. It was too much, too close, and even now, Juno’s skin hurt him. He bit his lips, let the pain of his teeth steady him as he applied a thin line of glue and pressed it down with gauze. 

Juno grabbed his shirt front in his fist. “You changed your cologne,” he slurred. 

“Oh. Yes. I thought.... well, I lost the last bottle.” Lost was a kind way to say that he had left it behind in a hotel room when the memory probed too much. 

Juno watched him, eye wide, lips parted. His pupil was dilated too far, the iris a barely visible ring of blue. His lips were chapped, the cracks filled with blood. 

Concussion, Peter thought, but he knew what fascination looked like. He was expert in ensnaring people, after all. 

Juno’s skin was burning hot, his hand near Peter’s chest, his knees against Peter’s calves, his face under Peter’s shaking hands. Even the memory of that heat could warm a man adrift in the expanse of space. 

Peter was often cold. 

Juno inhaled sharply. “I’m going to faint,” he said. 

Peter caught him as he lurched sideways and stopped him from falling. 

It had been a concussion, after all. 

Juno let out a wheezy chuckle, eyes mostly shut. “‘M a mess, Nureyev.”

“Yes well, you are covered in blood.” Peter stepped back, took the gloves off, busied himself with tidying the box. “It happens to the best of us.” 

“No, I mean...”

If Juno said a kind thing now, it would be forgotten in the morning, and Peter could not survive that. It would be better to stay cold. 

“Don’t worry,” Peter said, his voice low but desperate. “Let me get you a glass of water.”


End file.
